Philanthropic Group Asks Rich Women for Work as Well as Money

PAM SCOTT, a marketing consultant, has worked with global brands like American Express, Nike and Levi’s to help them connect better with their customers.

She has also served on nonprofit boards and is co-manager of the Koogle Foundation with her husband, Timothy A. Koogle, the first executive of Yahoo.

But she recently got a request that would combine the two experiences: Commit three years of her time, give at least $1 million and do actual work to solve a social problem.

Most charitable organizations seek the involvement of donors, to keep them giving and perhaps persuade some to serve as trustees, but the invitation Ms. Scott received was to become one of the first members of the Maverick Collective, a group of wealthy women who are required to become involved in the organizations they fund.

Ms. Scott said the request was so different that she was intrigued. “I just got the tour so many times,” she said of past courtships by nonprofit groups.

“It seems,” she said, that charitable organizations often keep people with money “at arm’s length and just let them see what they want to see.”

“As someone who has been a thought partner for some of the best companies in the world,” she added, “it was really frustrating that I couldn’t give away some of the services that I’d been paid well for by companies.”

But the Maverick Collective wanted the women to give their expertise. The group was created by Population Services International, a global nonprofit organization that focuses on family health and planning in the developing world. (Melinda Gates and Princess Mette-Marit of Norway are co-chairwomen of the Maverick initiative.)

“Money alone is not going to solve problems,” said Kate Roberts, senior vice president for corporate partnerships and philanthropy at Population Services International. “We believed we had a real opportunity to look at the promising solutions around girls and women and create the first collective of smart, bold women to use their money and skills to end extreme poverty in their lifetime.”

She said the women were recruited to work on its wish list of difficult problems. “To put a dent in these issues, we need a whole movement that is willing to invest in this,” she said.

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In April 2015, Pam Scott, center, conducted a workshop on human-centered design in Tanzania.CreditSameer Kermalli/Maverick Collective

Such an idea is not without major risks. For one, what do people who have made millions in industries very different from the nonprofit world know about solving social problems?

Even without asking for help, nonprofit organizations can struggle with board members who meddle in staff matters. Inviting real involvement in the day-to-day workings of an organization can be a recipe for disaster.

Donors “feel they can lend a hand given their skill set, and they have a desire to do it,” said Marguerite Griffin, director of philanthropic advisory services at Northern Trust Wealth Management. “It can be challenging from the nonprofit’s standpoint. They know what they need to do to get the work done. They want the donor to be engaged. It’s invaluable. But it comes at a cost.”

Ms. Scott’s involvement was initially met with skepticism by the people she would be working with in Tanzania, not least of all because she lived in San Francisco — a 10-hour time difference.

“I had a preconceived idea,” said Melissa Higbie, a deputy country director for Population Services International in Tanzania. “I thought, how are we going to communicate and stay engaged? We weren’t going to ask her how to do this in a flexible way. But she said, ‘I’ll get up at 6 a.m. so you can work.’”

In doing that every week, Ms. Scott built trust with the Population Services International team, Ms. Higbie said. She has also regularly visited Tanzania and worked directly to coach Ms. Higbie’s staff members when they had problems.

Ms. Scott said she knew she had to be involved to build trust but also to understand what needed to be done.

“If you don’t get eye to eye and shoulder to shoulder with the people on the ground, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes,” she said.

Her marketing expertise is in something called “human-centered design.” At its simplest, that involves asking customers what they want, instead of guessing and trying to persuade them to buy the product anyway.

Her project in Tanzania was aimed at reducing teenage pregnancy. Initially, she tried to think of ways to create more demand among teenagers for contraceptives, but then she realized that the problem was coming from medical workers.

“Almost all the providers have a lot of empathy for girls, but what we found was empathy was causing them to adopt a concern for women that was counterproductive,” she said. “They were concerned about the girls’ most important asset, their fertility. There were a lot of providers who thought it might be harmful to give them contraceptives because it might harm their fertility.”

Since that discovery, the project in Tanzania has worked with medical providers. Ms. Scott’s $1 million effort has expanded to a $31 million project with help from other foundations, and it now encompasses two other African countries.

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Pam Scott at Ideo.org. Through the Maverick Collective, she worked on a project in Tanzania to reduce teenage pregnancy.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

This was what Population Services International hoped would happen. “We don’t consider our Mavericks donors,” Ms. Roberts said. “We consider them part of the team. Our members are helping us build the car while we are driving it.”

Population Services International did not arrive at this model quickly. The process was the opposite of the way it and other nonprofits typically approach a problem, which is to present their solution and seek funding for it — without knowing for sure if that solution really is a solution.

Yasmin Madan, global marketing director for Population Services International, said the Mavericks came about after the organization realized that “the current range of products and services wasn’t enough.”

“There was some hesitation to open the hood and show how the engine works,” Ms. Madan said. “That’s not how we typically work. This was an evolution in P.S.I.’s thinking to say, ‘This isn’t working. We’re hitting a roadblock here. There has to be something different.’”

So it went scouting for women who could give at least $1 million over three years but were also committed to social change. Indrani Goradia, who lives in Texas, had already started a foundation, Indrani’s Light, to train workers at domestic abuse shelters so they could help without succumbing to compassion fatigue. As part of the collective, she can take this idea to India.

Diane Powell, a social worker and volunteer, said that after her husband had a big payday at a biotechnology company, they began looking for ways to give. Her husband, who heard Ms. Roberts speak at a conference, approached her, and soon Ms. Powell was part of the collective. She has taken on a project in Senegal to reduce the maternal mortality rate.

Population Services International made sure that everyone knew what was expected so donors and staff members could work together.

Concerns about donor meddling are real, but so, too, is the risk that donors will become bored or feel underused. At the same time, a donor may come to feel trapped and see the involvement as a burden.

“You may want to ask if you’re involved in a way that is meaningful for you,” said Kenneth E. Spruill Jr., manager of private foundations at Hawthorn, the private wealth division of the PNC Financial Services Group. “People’s lives ebb and flow. If you’ve got young children, your involvement may torque back a bit. You can get compassion fatigue.”

To this end, Ms. Griffin at Northern Trust Wealth Management said she often suggests that donors limit their involvement to a certain number of times a month or quarter. And she said that “discrete opportunities” can be more effective.

Ms. Scott said she had looked at her involvement like one of her business projects: a chance to solve a problem.

“I hope that the work that I’m doing with P.S.I. has two outcomes,” she said. “One, we really realize our dreams and put a significant dent in teenage pregnancy in Tanzania and, secondly, I hope that P.S.I. embraces the idea of human-centered design.”

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